


impasse

by buckstiel



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Anal Sex, Blackmail, Extramarital Affairs, Hand Jobs, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Power Exchange, Reynolds Affair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:25:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5325626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckstiel/pseuds/buckstiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1860, <i>The Amorous Intrigues and Adventures of Aaron Burr</i> was anonymously published. </p>
<p>In 1797, upon his political enemies' discovery of his affair with Maria Reynolds, Alexander Hamilton set out to ensure at least one of them would keep his mouth shut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	impasse

**Author's Note:**

> _The Amorous Intrigues and Adventures of Aaron Burr_ is a [real thing that exists](http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/TEIgeneral/view?docId=wright/VAC5581&chunk.id=d1e181&toc.id=d1e181&brand=wright;query=#docView). All quotations in this fic come straight from the linked copy of the text. It's wild, and I salute our unnamed hero, whoever they actually were.
> 
> I've never written smut before. Who knew this would be the subject. I'll be at hell's Orientation Session C, if anyone wants to meet up. 
> 
> (Much thanks to feraldanvers for the beta!)

The fact of the matter was, if he were being honest with himself, there simply weren’t enough hours in the day for him to finish everything he needed to write by the following week, even if he were to forego all other responsibilities to others as well as himself; it was a feasible if unpleasant option, by his calculations, but Eliza had overheard him talking to himself about it while waiting for his eighth cup of tea to brew and put a stop to it at once.

“‘You have to sleep, Alexander,’” he muttered. His handwriting was becoming almost illegible. “I mean, _in theory_.”

At the corner of his desk, the candle had melted into a stub, the light hardly reaching to the far wall where the clock stood, not that it would have been much use to determine the time. The night was dark and close beyond the window and the clock hadn’t been wound in either two days or six months or something in between. 5:15, it read-- _probably not_.

But then there was the matter itself, the long list of essays and papers to write since the governing of this great young nation was already going awry under Adams’ leadership, and shouldn’t someone see to it that it was properly addressed to its full extent, item by item; and shouldn’t Alexander offer up some protection for himself should Burr get a wild hair and seek to use his newly-acquired knowledge of the Reynolds affair against him? Yes, the answer was, of course, yes--what else could he have been expected to do? To sit back and watch disastrous events unfold, knowing a single glint of brilliance from his words could have prevented it: that was not something he was eager to witness in his lifetime.

And beyond, for that matter. “John,” he had started on far more occasions than he would have cared to admit, “if ghosts are real, and if I come back as a ghost…” The liquor was always thick on his tongue, fuzzed at the clattering noise resulting from whatever Lafayette and Mulligan had gotten themselves into on the other side of the bar; but the distortion never quite reached Laurens himself, even with their heads bowed so closely together. The smirk and swallowed laugh were as sharp as ever. “Would I still be able to hold a pen? Or--humor me, please!” And then--full-blown--all teeth and unbecoming snorting until he could hold it back once more. “If I were a ghost, John, tell me, I would still be able to speak, right?”

“It wouldn’t be you if it couldn’t,” Laurens had said as many times as it had come up.

Hamilton missed them all terribly, far flung across the continent and the ocean and--and also beyond. Certainly they could have offered up some advice on how he should have handled Jefferson’s ambush-- _and if ghosts actually did exist_ … he didn’t let himself finish the thought. A number of events over the years since the end of the war would have played out differently without that conspicuous absence, but dwelling on it now, when the candle stub was waning dangerously close to a puddle of wax, would do no good.

Back to the task at hand: approximately sixty pages had strode forth from his pen since he first sat down with the idea, and while it was nowhere near complete, sacrifices had to be made to attend to the other items on his list. The gist of what needed to be taken away from the sixty-and-growing pages was evident, however, and that warranted putting it into action; Hamilton shuffled the papers together, blew out the candle, and tried not to curse at the hot wax burning his fingers as he fumbled down the stairs in the dark.

Being a senator meant Burr lived a tad further away than when they were co-counselors, meaning he had all the more time to plan exactly how he would present the issue to Burr. For once, he suspected, he would have to be as succinct and persuasive as he had insisted Burr was on the eve following the Constitutional Convention. Getting right to the point, throwing down the gauntlet without the preamble: now was as good a time as any to learn.

What Hamilton did not count on, however, was Burr’s mood. “Do you know what _time_ it is?” Burr called from behind the closed door to his home: it seemed Hamilton was not the only one capable of learning.

“No, and I need to talk to you.”

“It’s half-past three, and no you don’t.”

He briefly thought about trying the knob, but reconsidered, opting instead to move a few inches closer to the door. “It can’t wait until morning. You’ll be busy, I’ll be busy. Frankly, this is the only time we’re both free--”

The latches clacked open and the door cracked just enough for Burr’s face to glower at him through the dark of his foyer. “Make it quick. Or…” he sighed, frowning more deeply as Hamilton stepped inside. “I don’t know. _Try_.”

Once he had lit the candle (and discarded a few pieces of apparently defective flint in the process), Burr turned to face Hamilton with the sort of resignation that could only be brought on by fatigue and years of dealing with the same thorn in his side. But even despite the bags gathering under his eyes and the creases further accentuating his familiar frown, he remained as handsome as he was the day they met.

“Don’t tell me that the great Alexander Hamilton is speechless for once,” he said.

“You know me better than that.” He dropped the stack of paper on the table next to him, and raised his eyebrows in a challenge. “Now, knowing what you know about my, um… involvement with the Reynolds… I wanted to be sure that you’d--”

“Keep my mouth shut?” 

“You were very ambiguous when you left after that meeting, and with personal and political loyalties being what they are; that is, not always completely in-sync with each other--you can understand that I had to be--”

Burr, already scanning the looped half-frenzied handwriting on the manuscript, held up a hand and almost seemed surprised that it had actually managed to stop Hamilton from continuing. “You’ve written fiction? To blackmail me?”

“I’m thinking of calling it… _The Amorous Adventures of Aaron Burr_ , or something along those lines.”

Burr tossed the papers back on the table and settled onto the edge of the nearby armchair, thumb already seeking to rub out what had to be the most persistent headache Hamilton had ever witnessed; it had to have been throbbing behind Burr’s eyes for the better part of the last few years. “It’s not your best plan.”

“Now--”

“If anything, it’ll lie forgotten among the ranks of Richardson and Behn and all the rest of those ridiculous novels--”

“People thought _Robinson Crusoe_ was real when it first came out, Burr, and who’s to say--”

But Burr sighed, and loudly enough to cut off the long train of thought that had been barrelling down the line. The attempts at massaging away the headache only doubled down, Burr’s eyes squinting shut against what Hamilton could only imagine was the bright beacon of this plan of his. Which, yes, was not his best--that would be the bank, clearly--but it certainly was not his worst as was implied. Burr just hadn’t realized it quite yet; so he strode over to the manuscript and flipped ahead a couple of chapters, clearing his throat. 

“‘There, with the beautiful and tender Adelaide in his arms,’” Hamilton said loudly, the first few pages drifting to the floor, marred with long creases in his hurry to get to the passage, “‘Burr quaffed the sweetest joys ever vouchsafed to man--”

Hamilton often felt cheated that Burr’s complexion hid any sort of flush that rose to his cheeks, but tonight--for perhaps the first time in his memory--he could tell without having a single visual cue.

“‘--while the glorious form of Adelaide was thrilled with raptures that she had never before imagined!’”

“What in the hell--"

“Shall I continue?” He raised his eyes from the next couple of lines and found Burr had already risen from his seat and crossed the short space between them, looking as if he were ready to snatch the rest of the manuscript from Hamilton’s hands and stoke it into what was left of the fire. “I’ll take that as a yes--”

“ _Alexander_.” His hand inched toward the top of the paper and Hamilton deftly side-stepped him as he searched for another passage to hold over his head. “Stop--hey, stop _moving_ \--”

It could have been called a dance, what they were doing, if there had been music--a clumsy waltz, its meter wavering along the off-beats while they circled around the furniture, Hamilton reading off all the while.

“‘She sank upon the carpet,” he smirked, leaning just out of reach of the tips of Burr’s fingers, “‘and Burr threw aside the envious drapery that concealed charms which might have seduced a man of ice.’”

Surely by this point Burr realized this was no idle threat; if one affair would threaten to derail Hamilton’s career, an entire book’s worth of supposed dalliances had the potential to absolutely decimate any further hopes Burr had for his own and--possibly--reach back into the past and ruin those as well. The title of “Senator Burr” would soon be a distant dream if the manuscript made it out of a publisher’s office, under one of the twenty or so pseudonyms Hamilton had at the ready for such an occasion.

But daydreams distract, and eventually Burr’s feet stepped a bit more quickly than expected. He snatched the papers out of Hamilton’s hands and tossed them in a half-attempted crumple over his shoulder, a few surviving sheets fluttering into the low-burning embers of the fire and blackening at the corners. Burr stood before him now, chests almost flush, an inch between them, and through his pursed lips Hamilton could tell his teeth were gritted.

“Stop, Alexander.”

“‘The cluster of raven threads which heavily covered the mount of Venus…” Hamilton smirked as Burr’s mouth fell open and his nostrils flared--did he not think he didn’t have this passage committed to memory in case of this particular turn of events? “...contrasted beautifully with the white round belly and alabaster thighs…” He smoothed out the shoulders of Burr’s shirt, which had rumpled in the scurry since Hamilton’s arrival--taking his time, being thorough and slow to ensure the wrinkles wouldn’t persist past the hour, and he ran his hands down to Burr’s elbows. “...while the two breasts stood up hard and firm, the lovely neck invited eager lips--”

“Alexander,” Burr hissed.

“--and the blue eyes rolled with wild desire and impatience--”

Burr’s mouth was pressed against his, no form or grace as his own hands latched around Hamilton’s forearms to ground him. “Is this what you wanted?” And he dove back again, slightly softer, dragging carefully over Hamilton’s bottom lip; for the first time all night, Hamilton felt his mind go blank, even if it was just for a moment.

“Not my original intention, no,” he said. “It’d be double the scandal if this got out.”

“You’d drag yourself down with me.”

“Only if you go public about Reynolds.” He closed the small gap between them, latched his mouth onto the pulse point on Burr’s neck, only pulling back once he was able to draw out a choked moan. “I like this insurance policy better.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Burr scoffed, but he wrenched his arms free from Hamilton’s hold and brought them back up to his face, holding him still so he could kiss him properly. “I’ve never understood--just--”

“Take your own advice.” With one hand gripping at the back of Burr’s neck, he brought their mouths back together, sucked at his bottom lip attentively as his other hand reached to unbutton Burr’s vest and untuck his shirt--his fingers trailed along the exposed skin above his breeches, and Burr’s sharp intake of breath, the continued unraveling of his carefully-maintained composure, edged on intoxicating. “Talk less.”

Even with Hamilton making quick work of unfastening Burr’s clothes, he felt himself forcefully walked back until the ledge of a desk hit the back of his thighs. “You wrote those things about me,” Burr murmured. He had pinned Hamilton against the desk with one knee between his legs, his own arms slightly inhibited by the shirt still hanging loosely off his shoulders as his fingers fumbled to get Hamilton to the same state of undress. “You had to imagine it.”

Burr spoke so softly that Hamilton could hardly hear him over the raucous pounding of his heart, the rush in his ears as every extremity was lit with a cold fire. A moan was perched at the back of his throat and it grew more impatient while Burr’s thigh ground more firmly into his quickly-hardening cock.

“You say this wasn’t your original intention, Alexander.” Burr’s fingers lightly ran down the sides of Hamilton’s neck, his lips just close enough for him to feel the heat without them truly touching. “Circumstances change, don’t they?”

And he knew it was a foolish question, one that did not require an answer, but--as Hamilton realized quietly, somewhere in the recesses of his mind--it had to have had the desired effect, as he forced Burr to swallow his moan, licked into his mouth, and when his hand reached down he found that Burr was already straining through his breeches. A small wobble in Burr’s knees let Hamilton push back against his pinned position at the desk and shift them back towards the armchair by the fire, where Burr fell heavily, panting, an effervescent glow drawing Hamilton’s hands back towards the wider swaths of exposed skin.

_Circumstances change._ Of course they did--Hamilton had been in this position before, standing above a lover sinking into the armchair, legs spread and neck flushed, and he couldn’t help but pause to admire the scene before him. He would kneel in deference before too long, either pulling the silks of Eliza’s dress aside to push his tongue into her, to make her sing; or, peeling back the years even further, to swallow Laurens down enough to quiet both of their minds for just a moment and to keep their fingers from itching back to their abandoned pens.

But Burr: this was less spontaneous than he was willing to let on, as spontaneous as Burr was actively suspecting. Arguing to convince him to join the cabal of Jay and Madison to write the Federalist Papers had spurred a burst of passion in his chest that at the time he had taken for anger but, at closer examination, was nearer to the ecstasy that ran through his veins the first times Laurens and Eliza had put their hands on him in the dark of a tent or bedroom.

“Is this what it’s like for you all the time?” Hamilton sighed. “When I just keep…” He stepped forward, knelt to one knee, and slowly began to pull Burr’s loosened breeches down from his hips. “... talking?”

Burr choked and reached out, fastened his grip around Hamilton’s collar and pulled him forward so that his knees were squeezed into the chair’s arms as he straddled him. Once more Burr’s mouth was hot and needy against his, biting into his lips with just the right amount of pain to send his eyes rolling to the back of his head and to push his hips to find friction against the fleeting contact of Burr’s chest beneath him.

Their clothes laid in clumsy heaps around the chair, draped over the back or half hanging from the arms, and every touch was then skin-on-skin, laden with years of too many words either spoken or withheld. Hamilton nudged his nose against the shell of Burr’s ear, breathing heavily while he dragged one finger along the underside of his shaft. Burr shook with it but did not utter a sound.

“What do you want?” he whispered. He gripped Burr’s cock at the head, let his palm grow slick with pre-come and slide down to the hilt and back again--and again, and again, but at the most leisurely pace Hamilton could manage with his own arousal. “You can tell me.” 

Burr reached with his free hand, pushed Hamilton’s face back towards his own--his eyes were blown black, breath stuttering as Hamilton quickened his pace on his cock. “A-Alexander--”

“Please, Burr…” And he slowed again, Burr tilting his head back so the tendons in his neck strained for want of Hamilton’s teeth. But he would have to wait. “You don’t have to play everything so close to your chest all the time.” He swirled his thumb along the head of Burr’s cock and pinched at a nipple with his free hand, and at last--

Burr let out a drawn-out moan, slurring on what may have been Hamilton’s name--but there was not enough time to dwell on the matter. His hands cemented themselves on Hamilton’s rear as he leaned forward out of the armchair and down to the floor, Hamilton on his back and Burr kneeling between his thighs. The entire time the hold on his cock remained where it was, slow and tantalizing and clearly sending his train of thought into a spasm.

“I want,” he started, stumbling over another groan. “I want to lay with you.”

“That can mean a lot of things… _sir_ ,” Hamilton grinned lazily. “You’ll have to be more specific.” Burr exhaled slowly, but Hamilton could tell that another wanton noise was rearing to escape from his lips.

“I want you to fuck me, Alexander, damn it.”

Hamilton sent him to fetch some oil from the kitchen, and upon his return began to slick his fingers as Burr straddled his hips. “Good things come to those who wait, but those who don’t can get something better. Come here,” he said, maneuvering Burr’s face to his to capture him in a slow, languid kiss as he pressed his first finger in.

Burr gasped into his mouth and pushed back, already trying to fuck himself against Hamilton’s hand. He obliged him with a second finger and, not soon after, a third.

“Are you ready for me, sir?”

“ _Oh--_ ” he choked, near obscene. Hamilton was more than ready to see how many of those sounds he could wring from him. “Please.”

Hamilton guided him to his cock, held his hips as he sank slowly and enveloped him in a blinding heat that he had only previously seen in the throngs of a political debate.

“Oh god,” Burr groaned. “Alexander, I want--I want you, anything, please--”

Sitting up, Hamilton braced both of his arms around Burr’s back and licked a line up to a nipple, running his tongue over the edges of the nub; Burr kept on babbling, pulling slightly at Hamilton’s hair as the words fell from his mouth. “Hold on, sir,” Hamilton murmured, and Burr did not try in the slightest to keep from yelping. “Do you like that? Do you like it when I call you sir?” He shifted the two of them until Burr was on his back, his legs hooked around Hamilton desperately.

“Yes, yes--”

“I had figured.” He tried out a thrust, slow and shallow, and the grip Burr’s legs had along his hips tightened. “More, sir?”

Burr nodded and latched on to Hamilton’s forearm so forcefully he suspected there would be a bruise in the morning; he could oblige his request, starting more slowly but growing quicker and deeper as the heat from it all crept up Hamilton’s neck to behind his eyes, as Burr’s moaning became louder and louder. At certain angles, he yelped with enough volume to possibly wake the neighbors, but he only tried to pull Hamilton into him deeper.

“Alexander--ah, ah--” It was filthier than Hamilton could have ever imagined, and he leaned down to suck on his pulse point; it only made Burr louder, but it was able to muffle the echoes coming from Hamilton. Something low in his stomach was starting to twist past the point he could bear it--his thrusting was becoming erratic, and as soon as he was aware of it, Burr was coming with a silent, gaping mouth, back arched far off the floor as he hotly painted their chests. The sight alone was enough to push Hamilton over the edge--he moaned deep in his chest as he rode it out, and Burr clutched at his back with uncharacteristic tenderness until he pulled out, flopping down next to him.

They laid there in silence. Beyond their feet, the fire had been rekindled by the few pages of Hamilton’s manuscript that had fallen there--the flames crackled and popped, overbearingly present in the absence of the sounds they had pulled from each other.

“Burr--”

“You should probably leave.”

Hamilton propped himself up on his elbows; Burr wouldn’t look at him, his mouth drawn into a tight line that hid his kiss-swollen lips. “If this--”

“You got what you wanted,” he said quickly. “I can’t go public about Reynolds now. Just get your papers and go.”

By the time he had reassembled himself to walk himself home--an embarrassingly ruffled version of the man who showed up on Burr’s doorstep--something heavy and rotten had already started to grow deep in his stomach. His secret was safe with Burr, who was the only real risk to it getting out, but that something inside him only grew heavier, an echo of a burden not lessened despite being spread so thin.


End file.
